Chapter Summaries

Wenren Sheng sent urgent news and began arranging a carrier-pigeon network while Huang Taiji tried to exploit the Red-Haired soldiers’ loyalty with a bribery scheme. Huang Taiji shifted to spreading the promise of silver to gather intelligence, but a soldier’s attempt to defect was shot down and the harbor troops were left divided and wary.

• Wenren Sheng sent a fast ship with news and ordered people to find civilian pigeon breeders for a rapid message network.
• Adopted Son B killed his adviser after refusing to betray Wenren Sheng, and guards secretly reported the killing.
• Huang Taiji’s interpreter negotiated with a Major and two lieutenants, who agreed to open the gates and bring two thousand Red-Haired soldiers over for five thousand taels of gold.
• Huang Taiji learned the full details of the deal, then ordered silver chests displayed and announced rewards to tempt soldiers into defecting and reveal enemy information.
• A soldier secretly climbed down from the harbor wall to claim the silver and was shot dead, while a man on the wall called the silver fake and persuaded many soldiers to stay.

Wenren Sheng expanded his supply network and recruited workers while Little Illusion offered to join his game. In a ruined village, a starving youth named Ergouzi hid from returning Han Eight Banners cavalry, only for Little Illusion’s monster to frighten the men away.

• Wenren Sheng expanded his workshops and recruited refugees, while exchanging goods for stored food rather than silver.
• Little Illusion reappeared and asked Wenren Sheng to let her and Old Wei join his game.
• After Jurchen scouts massacred his village, Ergouzi buried his family and other villagers in a well, then went to Liu Big Landlords’ home for food.
• Ergouzi ate sesame-oil flatbread in the kitchen and hid in a firewood pile when five Han Eight Banners cavalrymen returned.
• The cavalrymen found Ergouzi’s tracks and slashed into the firewood, where Little Illusion’s monster appeared and drove them fleeing from the house.

A newly born abomination grew by devouring corpses in Liu Family Village and attacked the Jurchen cavalry who returned to capture it. As stories of the monster spread, Mangultai dismissed them, but Daišan confirmed that his men and Han People Booyi painters had witnessed it.

• The five cavalrymen returned to Liu Family Village after mistaking the newborn abomination for rare seafood, but fled again when they found it had grown enormous by eating the household's corpses.
• The abomination caught one cavalryman with its snake-like appendages and dragged him toward its fanged maw while the others escaped.
• Wenren Sheng ordered two strongholds established as supply points for trade with the East Dynasty and the Island Country.
• A villager described the monster to people in a capital tavern, saying it had helped drive Eastern Tartars away from his village and seemed to target people carrying blades.
• Mangultai dismissed reports of a monster as a rumor meant to let the plunderers return home, but Daišan said his men and Han People Booyi painters had seen and depicted it.

Mangultai and Daišan argued over whether to retreat from Great Ming after a poisonous Seafood Monster appeared, and Mangultai chose to lead a force against it. He found the creature inside a corpse-filled city and saw that it resembled an enormous ship.

• Daišan urged Mangultai to retreat Outside the Pass, warning that the monster could spread plague and destroy their army.
• Mangultai agreed to withdraw but remained unwilling to abandon the riches and provisions they could seize, so he decided to fight with White Armor, Red Armor, and Han Eight Banners troops.
• Cavalry scouts discovered that the Seafood Monster had moved onto the army’s rear route, apparently following the stench of corpses from the cities the Jušchen had massacred.
• Mangultai led his troops to a city filled with unburied dead and spotted the colossal Seafood Monster inside its walls.
• Mangultai recognized that the creature resembled a huge Fujian junk, like the large ships described by southern merchants.

Mangultai tried to destroy the Large Ship Monster with rockets and Fierce Fire Oil, then prepared a trebuchet barrage when the rockets failed. His forces covered the monster in oil and shot its agile snakes with heavy arrows, but the snakes kept fighting despite their wounds.

• Mangultai fired hundreds of rockets at the Large Ship Monster, but mucus smothered the flames.
• Mangultai ordered Shan Ke to find Fierce Fire Oil, then pulled his men back and had craftsmen build trebuchets after the oil throwers suffered venomous attacks.
• Mangultai gathered 3,400 elite Soldiers and ordered additional cavalry and infantry reinforcements while the Large Ship Monster continued eating corpses and slowly growing.
• Mangultai executed people who worshipped the monster, then ordered his Soldiers to load the trebuchets with oil and other flammable materials.
• The trebuchets hurled Fierce Fire Oil jars around the monster, while a clever green snake coordinated other snakes to knock many jars aside.
• Mangultai ordered heavy arrows against the clever snakes, but they continued blocking projectiles even after being pierced.

Mangultai burned the gigantic monster, but it split into hundreds of smaller creatures that hunted his forces during the retreat. Youth regained control of his body and directed the monsters, while a night mutiny among the Booyi killed twenty thousand people.

• Mangultai doused the resting Large Ship Monster with fire oil and ordered his men to ignite it, causing it to burn and split open.
• Hundreds of smaller monsters burst from the Large Ship Monster, and Mangultai sent more than two thousand cavalrymen to hunt them.
• The Jurchens discovered that the burned monster’s bones were made of refined steel and collected them before withdrawing.
• Youth regained control of the smaller monsters, directed them to hunt the retreating forces, and decided to survive by eating corpses at least seven days old.
• The monsters ambushed Mangultai’s column at night, and more than ten thousand Booyi slaves revolted against their Eight Banners masters.
• The Booyi rampage ended the next morning, when the survivors counted twenty thousand dead among the slaves and captured young men.

After camp mutinies devastated his forces, Mangultai feared the mysterious Large Ship Monster’s curse and changed how he treated his soldiers and captives. He led the surviving Jurchens out of the passes, while rumors in the Capital Region turned the monster into an object of worship.

• Mangultai ordered one in every eleven rebellious Booyi executed, and the order sparked another mutiny among the Armored Banner Soldiers that slaughtered thousands.
• Mangultai withdrew with his White Armor guards as the camp descended into chaos, then learned that only 2,200 Red Armor remained and the White Armor had suffered no losses.
• Fearing another mutiny, Mangultai released captured young and middle-aged men, gave the soldiers wine, fed the Booyi well, and slowed the army’s march.
• Two months later, the Jurchens withdrew from within the passes, while rumors spread across the Capital Region that a giant ship-sized monster had frightened them away.
• Some commoners began worshipping the monster, unaware that it had already split into many smaller monsters.

Huang Taiji spared Mangultai after his disastrous defeat by a monster and began preparing to unite the Eight Banners against the threat. After hearing Mangultai’s full account, Huang Taiji concluded the monster had two abilities: physical attacks and the power to bewitch people’s minds.

• The Eight Banners nobles demanded Mangultai’s execution for losing thousands of soldiers, but Huang Taiji defended him and ordered him confined instead.
• Huang Taiji broke down over the appearance of an Evil God’s offspring, then regained his resolve while speaking with Hailanzhu.
• Huang Taiji visited Mangultai in the Heavenly Prison, promised they would reconcile, and asked him to recount the encounter in detail.
• Mangultai described the battle and the camp mutinies, leading Huang Taiji to regret that he had not been there to contain and burn the monster.
• Huang Taiji concluded that the creature could attack physically with venom and poisonous snakes, and could also bewitch people and drive them mad.

Huang Taiji persuaded Mangultai to unite Manchu and Han forces and reform the army to fight the monster, while Wenren Sheng learned more about the creature’s powers. In the capital, Chongzhen heard of the Eight Banners’ catastrophic losses, and a court official called the monster’s attack a heavenly omen against the Jurchen.

• Huang Taiji told Mangultai that only a united, willing army modeled on the Yue Family Army could resist the monster, and Mangultai agreed to support him.
• Huang Taiji proposed teaching soldiers to read, promising relief from cruel military laws, and winning tenant farmers’ loyalty by giving them land.
• Wenren Sheng questioned Little Illusion about the monster, and she explained its beastlike abilities, intelligence, and resentment-triggered mental attack, crediting Old Wei for creating it.
• Chongzhen heard that Mangultai’s force had lost more than eight thousand men during its encounter with the monster.
• A supervising secretary declared the losses an auspicious heavenly punishment against the Eastern Tartars, though the court lacked enough enemy heads to claim a conventional victory.

Chongzhen’s court honored the corpse-eating monsters as divine omens, while Wenren Sheng focused on industrializing the south and preparing to leave Great Ming. The chapter ended with Wenren Sheng’s parents discussing Little Illusion and her busy Sister, remarking that people were born to different fates.

• Chongzhen ordered temples and sacrifices for the monsters, and the Ministry of Rites gave them a lengthy honorific title.
• The monsters ate corpses, evolved into underground burrowers, and settled along the Jurchen invasion route, which Ming officials mistook for a protective defense system.
• Chongzhen kept memorials opposing the monsters out of court and accepted his ministers’ claims that they could save the border forces’ money and grain.
• Wenren Sheng expanded factories and taught displaced refugee children a mixture of Eastern and Western ideas as he prepared to move on to another world.
• Ouyang Ling and Wenren De discussed their son’s travels and compared Little Illusion, who played every day, with her hardworking Sister.

Player Huang Taiji led 60,000 troops against the underground monster but retreated after its tunnels and tactics overwhelmed his preparations, choosing instead to flee overseas. Wenren Sheng won the wager and absorbed the Golden Armor God’s world essence, then arranged to awaken with his memories and wisdom suppressed in a thatched house.

• Player Huang Taiji trained 60,000 Eight Banners soldiers, invaded through the pass, and encountered the monster at his camp.
• The monster attacked from underground, wounded soldiers to undermine morale, and forced Player Huang Taiji to retreat after he discovered its tunnels beneath the camp.
• Player Huang Taiji abandoned the campaign and planned to flee east by sea, while Mangultai accepted his explanation that they needed a stable rear.
• Wenren Sheng accepted the Golden Armor God’s heart as the wager’s payment, gaining 10,000 Mystery Points from the world essence.
• Little Illusion helped Old Wei arrange for Wenren Sheng to pass out, and Wenren Sheng stored his memories and wisdom in the Seed of Mystery.
• Wenren Sheng woke in a rundown thatched house with only his memories from when he first transmigrated.

Wenren Sheng used the Seed of Longevity to plan a cautious life in a world ruled by immortal sects, building wealth and avoiding the sect’s dangerous recruitment. After moving to Green Mountain City, he began looking for ways to gain strength and considered learning martial arts.

• Wenren Sheng learned that the Seed of Longevity granted him eternal youth but would not protect him from fatal injuries, so he stayed away from Green Cloud Sect’s recruitment.
• Wenren Sheng settled in Green Mountain Village, learned to read and calculate, and became a bookkeeper for Liu Big Landlords while building a safer home and acquiring land.
• Wenren Sheng heard that two village children recruited as Green Cloud Sect servants had died from exhausting labor, reinforcing his decision to avoid the sect.
• Wenren Sheng refused Liu Big Landlords’ proposed marriage and yamen position by maneuvering a rival into taking the opportunity, then accepted work as a bookkeeper at the family’s city inn.
• Wenren Sheng moved to Green Mountain City and learned that Green Mountain Martial Hall taught martial arts for silver, though students were forbidden to pass the techniques on.

Wenren Sheng joined Green Mountain Martial Hall and mastered three external martial arts while learning that inner qi cultivation was restricted to young, well-connected disciples. He kept a mysterious transforming lobster as a pet and, fifteen years later, had become a wealthy guard captain with adopted sons, though his hard training had left him scarred and aching.

• Wenren Sheng chose external hard training to avoid marriage and joined Green Mountain Martial Hall after paying a Senior Brother to verify his background and fill in a guarantor.
• Wenren Sheng learned Iron Sand Palm, Iron Cloth, and Iron Leg, then heard Third Senior Brother explain the costs and restrictions of inner qi cultivation and the trade-offs of external arts.
• Wenren Sheng found a Turtle at his door, and it transformed into a Giant Lobster after he talked about lobsters’ long lives.
• Wenren Sheng cared for the lobster, which he named Wen Da, while continuing to train for fifteen years.
• Wenren Sheng became Liu Big Landlords' Guard Team captain, adopted Wen Er and Wen San, and reached mastery in his three martial arts as his body developed scars and aching joints.

Wenren Sheng avoided a dangerous transfer, saved money, and left Green Mountain County Town after suspecting Green Mountain Martial Hall was in trouble. He settled in a neighboring county, cultivated internal energy for decades, then disappeared in the mountains, where his adopted children later found his remains.

• Wenren Sheng declined to accompany Third Young Master to the neighboring county, and the guard captain who went was crippled after Third Young Master offended the local gentry.
• Wenren Sheng saved one thousand taels, then grew suspicious when Green Mountain Martial Hall lowered the price of its internal energy manual and sold properties.
• Wenren Sheng moved with Giant Lobster and his two children to the neighboring county, where he bought the manual and medicinal herbs before Green Mountain Martial Hall's master fled an attack by the Demonic Sect.
• Wenren Sheng settled into work teaching basic martial arts to wealthy households' guards and cultivated internal energy for more than twenty years.
• Wenren Sheng left for the mountains with Giant Lobster and never returned; his adopted children later found his clothes and belongings beside a skeleton and buried his remains.

After a century of secluded training, Wenren Sheng reached the limit of martial arts and set out to find a middle-aged independent cultivator who could teach him immortal arts. On the road, he encountered famine and rebellion under Green Cloud Sect’s jurisdiction, and began analyzing why the immortal sects ignored the common people.

• Wenren Sheng spent a hundred years cultivating until his Internal Force and external martial arts reached their limits, while the Giant Lobster grew into a giant green lobster.
• Wenren Sheng decided to seek a middle-aged independent cultivator below the second level of Qi Refining to teach him immortal arts, rather than risk joining an immortal sect.
• Wenren Sheng learned that a popular uprising had erupted in a dynasty under Green Cloud Sect’s jurisdiction because land annexation and drought had left the common people desperate.
• Wenren Sheng reached a desolate city where wealthy households had slaughtered refugees, and learned that the imperial court’s grain aid was insufficient and Green Cloud Sect had declined to intervene.
• Wenren Sheng inferred that immortal sects had little need for labor and reasoned that scarce Spirit Herbs and alchemists made industrial-scale pill production impossible.

Wenren Sheng spent years studying a retired independent cultivator, Zhang San, then planted a disguised copy of Journey to the West for him to discover. After Zhang San became captivated by the story, he used a talisman to track its seller and found Wenren Sheng outside the city.

• Wenren Sheng learned that Zhang San, a retired cultivator living in a neighboring county, spent his days listening to stories and writing tales about immortals.
• Wenren Sheng adapted Journey to the West to suit the world, hid it in a mountain cave, waited ten years, then copied and sold it under a false identity.
• Old Liu began telling Journey to the West at Bright Moon Teahouse, and Zhang San rewarded him with ten taels of silver and returned the next morning for more.
• Zhang San asked Old Liu to take him to the young seller, Zhang Rong, and learned that he was supposedly an eighteen- or nineteen-year-old hunter from the mountains.
• When Old Liu could not find Zhang Rong at the market, Zhang San traced the manuscript with a talisman and found Wenren Sheng in a shack outside the city.

Wenren Sheng captured Zhang San after Zhang San murdered the Storyteller and tried to use him as Human Medicine. By testing Zhang San’s cultivation method on others, Wenren Sheng uncovered concealed dangers and continued seeking cultivators, determined to solve the problem over time.

• Zhang San killed the Storyteller and attacked Wenren Sheng, but Wenren Sheng trapped him in a pit and layered steel cages around him.
• Zhang San revealed that he wanted to use Wenren Sheng’s vigorous vitality as Human Medicine to extend his own life.
• Wenren Sheng forced Zhang San to swear an oath and disclose the Evergreen Skill, then imprisoned him while testing the method on other people.
• Several cultivators developed plant-like nodules after practicing the method, exposing dangers Zhang San had concealed.
• Wenren Sheng starved Zhang San until he disclosed more obstacles to cultivation, but Wenren Sheng continued searching for other rogue cultivators and capturing them.

Wenren Sheng learned that the Golden Pill Tribulation would bring desperate Golden Core cultivators searching for treasures and human medicine, so he hid underground and cultivated with the Giant Lobster. After centuries in seclusion, he remained stuck at Qi Refining completion while the Giant Lobster reached the Golden Core Stage.

• Zhang San warned Wenren Sheng that the Golden Pill Tribulation would come in roughly five hundred years, then died of old age in his cage.
• Wenren Sheng stopped capturing rogue cultivators, moved into a rocky mountain, and began digging a deep underground hideout while cultivating the Evergreen Skill.
• The Giant Lobster advanced rapidly in cultivation, learned the Shrinking Technique, and later brought Wenren Sheng a complete Evergreen Skill that reached the Golden Core Stage.
• Wenren Sheng sealed himself underground as battles shook the outside world, cultivated to Qi Refining completion, and failed to break through despite eating salted eggs.
• After five hundred years, the Giant Lobster reached the Golden Core Stage while Wenren Sheng remained at Qi Refining completion and wondered whether the lobster's strength simply grew with time.

After emerging from isolation, Wenren Sheng found the world recovering from a Golden Pill battle and began seeking a way to socialize without risking close attachments. He secretly introduced technological knowledge through a book, and a dying Golden Core cultivator began building a Divine Sense network that might preserve souls.

• Wenren Sheng reached Foundation Establishment, learned the Turtle Breathing Art, and left the cave with the Giant Lobster after a century of sensing no danger outside.
• Wenren Sheng learned that two Golden Pill cultivators had destroyed the mountain and half the nearby county town while fighting over a Spirit Herb before a stronger immortal captured them.
• Wenren Sheng decided that online games could help him maintain his sanity, then resolved to develop technology while carefully managing the risks of discovery.
• Wenren Sheng used poor workers to develop computing concepts, compiled his knowledge into books, and secretly circulated Prehistoric Civilization Technology Overview among independent cultivators.
• A dying Golden Core cultivator read the book, imagined using a Divine Sense network to store souls, and began organizing independent cultivators to build one.

Wenren Sheng developed an internet network that let Golden Core cultivators preserve their souls, then returned online and used monitoring programs to observe a Spirit Stone mine. He watched Liu Gang use his clone ability to kill a Qi Refining cultivator who tried to rob him, and learned that Liu Gang was also a transmigrator.

• Wenren Sheng used his Golden Core as a server for a divine-sense network and discovered that his soul could persist within it using cultivators’ divine senses as energy.
• After decades of cultivation, Wenren Sheng bought Internet Talismans at an independent cultivator market and learned that Golden Core families sought blood relatives to sustain souls living in the network.
• Wenren Sheng spent fifty years creating monitoring programs and used one to investigate the harsh labor conditions at a Green Mountain Sect Spirit Stone mine.
• Wenren Sheng observed Liu Gang use his clones to mine and absorb Spirit Stones, increasing his cultivation and clone count rapidly.
• Wang Qi tried to rob Liu Gang, but Liu Gang’s clones killed him, and Liu Gang declared that he was a transmigrator.